'Worst job recovery in history' - US economy falls below expectations for the second month

The US economy fell below expectations for the second consecutive month, with January adding only 118,000 new jobs, according to the latest data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

The numbers released on Friday were an improvement over the
75,000 jobs added in December, but they still landed well short
of the 178,000 jobs economists were expecting.

January’s job gains also fell below 2013’s average monthly job
growth, which came in at 194,000.

Despite the economy’s disappointing numbers, the Associated Press
reported that more people started looking for work in January.
Since some of these people were able to find jobs, the
unemployment rate ticked down to 6.6 percent, the lowest it’s
been since October 2008.

There are still about 3.6 million people classified as long-term
unemployed in the United States, though. Even that number, in
reality, is probably higher since unemployment benefits were
discontinued for a number of Americans by the end of last year
and have yet to be restored. All told, about 63 percent of
Americans are either employed or looking for work – a little
higher than last month’s numbers but still near a low point the
US hasn’t seen in more than three decades.

In a post on the White House blog, the Obama administration’s
chairman of the council of economic advisers John Furman called
the overall unemployment rate “unacceptably high” and
urged Congress to reinstate the extended unemployment benefits.

“Today’s report is another reminder of both the progress that
has been made and the challenges that remain,” he wrote.
“Businesses have now added 8.5m jobs over the last 47 months
and the unemployment rate ticked down to its lowest level in more
than five years. But the economy is still healing from the Great
Recession and steps are still needed to expand economic
opportunity.”

Meanwhile, Speaker of the House John Boehner (R-Ohio) called the
current state of the economy the “worst jobs recovery in
history” and pinned the blame on President Obama’s lack of
leadership, according to the Guardian.

“The American people continue to ask ‘where are the jobs?,’
and the president clearly has no answers,” Boehner said.

With the unemployment rate dropping, attention is also shifting
to the Federal Reserve, which previously indicated it would start
halting its stimulus policies once unemployment reached 6.5
percent. Now, however, the Fed is expected to revise the way it
looks at the economy as it considers a path forward.

"A low unemployment rate doesn't mean what it did in the
past," Coronado told CNN. "It's not associated with an
acceleration in hiring, and it's not associated with stronger
wage growth. Ultimately, what the Fed wants to see is more money
in consumers' pockets."